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Lessons From Egypt

February 17, 2011 by

This entry is cross-posted at Generally Speaking.

Recent events in Egypt are indeed historic. They can be viewed through a host of lenses. Among them: the Egyptian people, President Mubarak, the Egyptian military, autocratic rulers in the Middle East and their citizens, terrorist groups like Al Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood, and Western governments. I will focus here on the lens through which the United States government and its national security apparatus have viewed the events at a strategic level, and what its implications might be in the future.

First, the events over these eighteen days showcased the clash between U.S. interests and espoused ideals. We attempted to straddle the fence between supporting the justified aspirations of millions of suppressed Egyptians and our own interests in the stability of a long time ally in the region. We knew that whatever position we took had secondary effects in other allied countries in the region led by dictators of suppressed populations. Ideals won out in the end, driven by events fortuitous for the U.S., but we lost some moral authority in the process. It is interesting that the Bush Administration’s “freedom and democracy” agenda in the Middle East is playing out but with a strategy and driving force they never considered. In both Iraq and Egypt dictators were toppled with two differences, one, we liked one of the two dictators and two, one of the actions did not cost the U.S. anything in blood or treasure. And as to final outcomes in the two, I would suggest that Iran is more likely to dominate Iraq’s future policies than the Muslim Brotherhood is to dominate Egyptian politics.

Second, these events illustrate a model or theory of these democratization processes. These types of events fall on a continuum from aspiration, to persuasion, to coercion. The American Revolution, the Solidarity Movement in Poland, and now the Tunisian and Egyptian movements fall into the aspiration category. Energy and determination came from the people. Persuasion is the least often experienced of the three, but may have been dominant in South Africa and Northern Ireland in our lifetimes. Finally, we have democracy through coercion, best exemplified in Iraq and Afghanistan where the U.S. continues to spend blood and treasure; democracy is foreign; and strong internal cultural, ethnic, and historic forces work against it. Clearly, democracy generated from the aspiration end of the continuum is preferable.

A final observation at the strategic level regards the effect these events may have on the “global war on terrorism” that the U.S. has been fighting for almost ten years at a cost of almost 6,000 lives and two trillion dollars to this point. Al Qaida has identified the overthrow of Mubarak as a primary goal since at least 1996. He has been overthrown and there is no hint of Al Qaida influences or involvement. Tunisia has gone the same route and several other Middle East dictators have taken steps to eliminate or reduce the grievances that Al Qaida has used to justify its movement and motivate its adherents. These aspiration and persuasive democracy movements reduce the market for what Al Qaida has to sell and reduced its effectiveness and brand. Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian issue, and overall U.S. Middle East policy are still potential rally cries for Al Qaida but its market for mayhem has contracted greatly. It remains to be seen whether America can take advantage of these developments in its “war on terrorism.” Watch closely.

Major General (Ret.) Dennis Laich is the Director of the PATRIOTS Program (www.ODUPatriots.com) for veterans at Ohio Dominican University.

Filed Under: Contributors, Defense Policy Magazine, Senior Contributors Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Egypt: Be Careful What You Wish For

February 6, 2011 by

As peaceful protest gatherings against the Mubarak regime in Egypt turned into mobs, riots, and roving gangs of looters, ordinary Egyptians were surly starting to wonder whether the change method of trying to topple the existing government was a good idea. What started out as a potential people’s revolution in the most populous Arab nation quickly began heading toward the chaotic creation of a major power vacuum, and one in which the protection and stability offered by the admittedly autocratic regime could quickly disappear.

As is the case with many of our developing nation allies, the Mubarak government in Egypt is a less-than-democratic entity with which we have necessarily dealt. But the regime has kept Egypt relatively peaceful, stable, and secure, resulting in close Western political ties, abundant foreign aid, and a thriving tourism industry that comprises more than 10% of the Egyptian economy.

That last fact alone should be a major cause of concern now that the situation has surely halted tourism completely. A sudden vaporization of 10% of any nation’s economy can be ruinous. But in a situation in which citizens are out in the streets burning buildings and vehicles because of dissatisfaction with the state of the nation’s politics and economics (as they indeed were, even before the pro-Mubarak demonstrators came onto the scene), such paradoxical behavior can only serve to exacerbate the grievances.

Supporters of the protesters-turned-rioters, who started out by attacking the Egyptian police and scaring them into abandoning their stations and quitting their jobs, were soon frantically asking where the police protection was. While Tunisia may have rolled the dice and won, the powder keg of Egypt may not be so lucky.

Filed Under: The Crossfire Tagged With: , , ,

The Rest of Egypt

February 4, 2011 by

There’s more to Egypt than Tahrir Square, but no one would know this from most media coverage of the crisis in Egypt over the past two weeks. Virtually all journalists and media outlets are focusing in like a laser on a less than one square kilometer part of Cairo known locally as Midan at-Tahrir, or Tahrir Square. But are the events taking place in this one small part of Cairo really reflective of the mood throughout the rest of Egpyt?

Tahrir Square is widely considered to be the heart of the very expansive city of Cairo because of its geographic location within the larger Cairo metro area, because one of the main bridges across the Nile empties out into the square, and because many of the city’s most important buildings are located adjacent to the square.

The Tahrir area is bordered on the west by the famous Nile Hilton (now being turned into a Ritz Carlton), the Arab League building, and the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, all over which overlook the Nile River. To the south of the square stands the massive and imposing Mogamma, a major Egyptian government administrative building, and the old campus of the American University in Cairo. To the east is a row of random shops, stores, and businesses, now surely in ruins. And to the north is the famous salmon-colored Egyptian museum, the repository of Egypt’s most famous antiquities and the final resting place of the ancient civilization’s most famous Pharaohs.

Underneath the square is the Sadat metro stop, the largest station of Cario’s subway system. And smack dab in the middle of the square is a large walled-off construction site. When I lived in Cairo seven years ago, this same part of Tahrir Square was under construction, and it had been under construction for at least five years prior at the time, with no one seeming to ever know what was actually being constructed there. Many of the metal panels walling off that construction site have now been transformed into make-shift shields and weapons for protesters.

Within eyesight of some of these adjacent sites are also many other important buildings like the Egyptian parliament, the Cairo World Trade Center, and the American Embassy, all sealing the Tahrir Square area as the undisputed heart of Cairo.

But even if you count that outer ring of institutions, the greater Tahrir area is still less than one square kilometer. In a city of 18 million, there are certainly many other squares, hundreds of other neighborhoods, a plethora of middle-class suburbs, not to mention Egypt’s other major cities and towns. While the media did cover unrest in the northern coastal city of Alexandria for the first week, even coverage of this major metropolitan area has subsided in lieu of the hard core drama taking place in Tahrir Square in Cairo.

But what has been happening in the rest of Egypt this entire time? Is there unrest in Suez at the southern end of its namesake canal, or at Port Said at the northern end? Are there protests in Sharm El-Sheikh or Taba on the Sinai Peninsula? How are the people of the western desert oases reacting to the turmoil far off in Cairo?

What about the towns and cities along the Red Sea’s west coast, especially the popular resort city of Hurghada? And what about the heavily trafficked tourist cities of Luxor and Aswan in the south. If tourism has come to a virtual halt, which must be the case with so many foreigners leaving the country, the lifeblood of these otherwise isolated areas must have dried up by now. What impact is this having?

And perhaps most consequential, what is going on in the densely populated cities of Middle Egypt, cities like Asyut and El Minya? This part of the country is so conservative, even fundamentalist, that Western tourists are not officially allowed to visit these cities for their own safety.

Those of us know know Egypt well are highly curious as to the sentiment in these other parts of the country, but the media are focusing only on one square kilometer in central Cairo. Is the rest of the country in crisis? Is Tahrir Square a representative microcosm of Egypt on the whole? Or is the coverage of Egypt just skewed toward the fireworks and drama that keep Americans glued to the television?

The answers to these questions are very important in forming an accurate and comprehensive analysis of the situation that is unfolding. Unfortunately, we may not know the answers for quite some time.

Filed Under: Contributors, Defense Policy Magazine, Senior Contributors Tagged With: , , , ,
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